


beg

by melonpen



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Let Number Five | The Boy Say Fuck, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Post-Season/Series 02, Suicidal Thoughts, gratuitous references to the apocalypse, kinda???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27502150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonpen/pseuds/melonpen
Summary: “I want you dead,” she said cheerfully.He could not help it. He chuckled. The last time he had done that around her, the sound had been low and rough with smoke. It had only been two weeks, but at this point, he could not associate that laugh with himself more than the feeling of not having a bullet wound in his body. It only made him hate her more.“What’s new?” he said at last._Or, in which the Handler wants Five dead, and there's only one person she would trust with the job. It's not herself.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & The Handler (Umbrella Academy)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 187





	beg

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, for context, this AU is centered around Five not killing the Board. The Handler simply gives the suitcase with a promise of later payment. The suitcase still doesn’t get used (dumb siblings are still dumb), Diego still gets kidnapped by Lila, but Lila never finds out that Five killed her parents, and the entire Commission vs. The Umbrella Academy scene never happens. They end up back in 2019 but everything is normal (I’m not even going to try to give a reason why). Anyway, this doesn’t really matter, it’s all just an excuse to get some extreme, probably out-of-character Five angst and then some hurt/comfort :)

Five recognized the thump the second he heard it.

First, his head whipped around, making sure none of his siblings were in the area — which, of course, they were not — then scampered over to the nearest hollow object: The microwave. It let out a nearly comical ding as he opened it, revealing the blemished golden container.

He opened it with the speed and dedication he usually reserved solely for well preserved, trustable food. He pulled out the rolled up piece of parchment, and read the overwrought cursive silently to himself: _Time to hold up your end of the bargain. The suitcase is in the alley outside._ The red lipstick stain was enough of a signature.

Five could not say what his first thought was. Maybe to blink away, to hide away in some nonexistent place in a nonexistent time where he could never be found. Or to rip the letter into pieces. Instead, he sighed, and did blink away— To the alleyway to the left of the academy.

He knew this was coming. He never should have made a deal with the Handler, much less accepted it without knowing the end of his bargain. But he was desperate to see his family safe and he was sloppy. He always was around her, too distracted by a mutual past and a million different instincts demanding to be used.

Five clicked it open without hesitation, and in the usual rush of blue with the vague, uncomfortable sensation of being tugged just to the left of your previous existence, he was in her office. He was facing the wrong side of the room, a bookshelf he was sure had never been touched in any of the (assuredly non-linear) time it had been there. He whirled around and—

His Handler, no, the Handler, rested on her desk, poised like something out a sixties pin-up with horrifically subversive tastes. Blood red heels on one corner of the table, ass on the other. Pretending to look through a folder resting on her lap. At least she was clothed. That automatically made it better than the 1890s assignment. As she turned her head to face him, the light from the windows glinted off her platinum hair. She neatly folded her stocking-covered legs in front of her with a delicacy no predator should have been able to have.

“Took you long enough,” she said. There was exasperation dripping off the words, sloppily painted on presumably from the pots of emotion she kept in the drawers in her desk.

“I only got the slip a minute ago,” he offered back. Neither of them meant it. Their version of pleasantries, empty words to claw at each other with until one of them gets the upper hand. Of course, she had already had it before he even arrived. 

She smiled, proving it was the right thing to say, perhaps making it all the more damning. “And I sent it a week ago! Isn’t that funny?” She did not wait for a reply, continuing, “Tell me, Fivey, how’s that little family of yours doing in 2019?”

He stiffened involuntarily. She was getting to business quickly. A very bad sign. She had never avoided an opportunity to play with him when he was cornered.

“Fine,” he answered gruffly.

“Is that so? Because, frankly, they’re supposed to be worm food in the sixties. Actually, in 2019, but I was willing to give you a pass on that one…”

Even now, it only took as long as his eyelids shutting to see their mangled corpses. The idea of them appearing to be resting was bullshit. Their limbs were twisted and their eyes glassy when he found them, and their bodies had begun to warp and bubble and stink by the time he buried them. Right now, in the in-between that was the Commission, he could not help but wonder which they were. Alive or dead. He had never been one to believe in anything without proof.

And his eyes opened once more to see the Handler, waiting with her standard gleeful impatience.

“What do you want?” he asked through gritted teeth. It must be something more gratifying to her than this conversation. Not the Board killed— If she had been reinstated, she must have given some other lucky dog that task. Whatever it is, he wanted it done as soon as possible.

“So impatient, my dear!” she chastised.

There was a beat of silence. He did his best attempt at waiting patiently. It was a sad one, he would admit, but forty years if solitude gave plenty of time for self-reflection, and he knew where his flaws lied. Sometimes, he wondered if it was his powers, constantly pulling him to move. But there was no quantifiable data to back that theory, so he left it to the side.

And she, of course, watched from above. Eating up every little twitch of his hands, the rise and fall of his chest, the millisecond shuttering of his eyelids. Making every single motion feel like a moral failure. Even his father had not managed that.

“I want you dead,” she said cheerfully.

He could not help it. He chuckled. The last time he had done that around her, the sound had been low and rough with smoke. It had only been two weeks, but at this point, he could not associate that laugh with himself more than the feeling of not having a bullet wound in his body. It only made him hate her more.

“What’s new?” he said at last.

She did not laugh. Instead, those glassy eyes of her glittered with anticipation.

“Oh, fuck off,” he hissed, and went to jump past through the door. Those talons of her encircled his arm, temporarily stopping his plans until he ripped it out of her grasp. But her words made him stop in his place.

“It’s your life or your family’s, Five.”

He took a breath, calming, centering, and exactly neither of those things. Then he turned around and faced her. The smile on her face reminded him of Grace’s plastic attempts at maternal comfort, if only infinitely more empty.

“Really, all that wit, and you’re so predictable,” she sighed. “So attached—“ 

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

“Don’t play dumb, honey, it doesn’t look good on you. You leave this room and I’m obligated to set the timeline straight. You die, and I can let a few little fucked up child stars slide.”

“Why don’t I just kill you now and leave?” 

Her lips pulled up on cue, as if he had given her the exact line she wanted. “Because I’ve already set the timeline straight!”

His blood ran cold in his veins. Cold like burying bodies on a moonless night. Cold like the silence of an ever-clattering mansion.

“No,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she corrected with glee.

For once, there were no thoughts running amok in his mind, no wild planning or not-quite-instantaneous calculations. The words slipped out without him truly thinking them, bitter and heavy and final in his mouth. “Alright. Do it then.”

“Oh, of course I’m not asking for your consent. I’m asking you to beg for it.”

Five stared back at her, waiting for the laugh, the wink, the gun. But she did not move to kill.

“I’m waiting,” she crooned.

He forced a laugh. It was less of one and more a bark, really, a high, sharp one, with no humor and only a little amusement. Perhaps it would make it a joke, if he did. “No.”

“I thought you wanted to save your family?” The Handler leaned forward, bent down half the way to his eye level, body language the definition of patronizing. Her smile was catlike, a sickening mirror image to one he knew so intimately, reflected in so many innocent and less-than-innocent eyes, a smug toothy grin that told of future cream. But her eyes were those of a hawk, sharp and cold. All the same as when she popped into his miserable existence nearly five years ago. “I always knew you were prideful, Five, but I didn’t think you valued it above their lives!”

He swallowed hard, refusing to fidget under her dissecting gaze. 

“Please.”

She tilted her head slightly, her smile going close-lipped, as if listening to birdsong. “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe I asked for a request.”

“Please,” he repeated, just the tiniest bit of desperation leaking out into his voice. Part of him was horrified to show such weakness in front of her, even now, but he had already settled into the familiar act of doing what needed to be done. “Please do it.”

At some point he had curled his hands into fists, and his nails, short as they were, dug painfully into his palms. Five forced his gaze from just left of her back to those triumphant blue eyes. She looked as if she was just barely tolerant of the display, rather than the one who demanded it.

Then she made the slightest gesture. A tilt of her chin, mirthful eyes moving to focus on the floor for only a second before jumping back up. He understood instantly, and it made his empty stomach churn.

He dropped to his knees with a thump. His knees would probably bruise, he would probably scuff the floor, would probably stain it. He did not care.

“Please, just—“

“Use your words, Five,” she said sweetly.

He felt like he was burning inside his skin, with anger and shame and humiliation. Like he was back in the apocalypse, the sun burning down on him with no remorse.

“Please kill me,” he choked out. Why was he choking? There was no sun, no dust. But he realized with horror, there was water welling in his eyes.

He did not know where his hands were before, unaware of anything but her and the vague idea of him, but somehow they ended up grasping at the front of her dress. It was soft, unlike her. He could imagine it was her skin he was sinking into, tearing, clawing, rather than a pet pawing at its owner’s legs.

She kicked at him. It was not really intended to hurt— If she wanted it to it would have. Instead, it was a warning which he accepted. He fell to the floor, burning hands pressing against the cold tiling, a puppet finally cut free.

“You got blood on my dress.” Where did the blood come from? He was clean. But no, he must have broken the skin of his palms. (But no, he was never clean.)

“Fine,” she said with a sigh. A sick part of him wanted to sigh with relief. She scrounged through the mess that laid on top of her desk, finally pulling out an old service revolver. World War One would be his first guess. She continued, musing, “Two bullets, but six holes. I wonder how long it will take.”

She grabbed the shoulder of his jacket tightly, tugging him back to rest limply on his heels. He could see her face now, and any faux-sympathy in her voice, the exaggerated pout on her face, was completely ruined by the vengeful glimmer in her glassy eyes. He tried to get up, but her grip remained firm. _Of course,_ he thought, _she wouldn’t grant me the dignity of dying standing tall._

He did not feel afraid. He was shaking, and his eyes burned, but he was not afraid. He was just empty inside, as empty as he was in the apocalyptic desert.

But through that haze, he still felt horrified when a fat tear rolled down his cheek. Her pout pulled farther down, and she reached out a hand, first ghosting over the outline of his cheek (like Grace used to, and Delores later) before roughly wiping away the tear. The point of her long nail scraped behind the touch, presumably leaving a long red talon-mark. He wondered if someone would find his body after death, and wonder who left it. Probably not, the Commission was too clever at disposal to have such a thing discovered.

“Don’t cry,” the Handler crooned. He stared at the floor with as much fury as he could muster. It was better than admitting his obvious defeat to her. “It won’t hurt. Well, that much.”

The barrel of the gun pushed his chin back up, cold and hard.

“I wouldn’t squirm if I were you. I’d hate to miss. Any last words?”

“Fuck you.” He was never a sentimental man.

And then the gun clicked for the first time.

Five flinched. It got a chuckle out of her. Maybe he was truly afraid of his own mortality, now that it was right before his eyes (and nudging his Adam’s apple). But really, he was afraid of a million other equally pathetic things, like the hand on his shoulder and the thoughts of his siblings alone and a loud, loud thump.

“One,” she murmured softly.

He had fought for so long. He had survived forty years alone in the end of the world. And now he was giving up. He was sure someone would argue (probably Vanya, forever sweet and forgiving) that he had had no other choice. But he was a genius, a time traveler, Five fucking Hargreeves. 

He could have gotten out of the apocalypse, saved his siblings from the bastard that was their old man. He could have never signed up for the Commission. He could leave here right now. But he was a coward. Strike that, he was no coward, but he was a weapon, as she had put it so crudely, good for one purpose, and one he had outlived. He could only hope that she lived up to her side of the deal.

Click. This time, he did not even breathe at the sound.

“Two.”

They could be happy, safe without him, and that was enough. He could live with this ending, and even if he could not, he would not have to for much longer. He only wished he had bothered to say goodbye. Before. Now. Selfish to the very end.

No click. Instead, a breath of a whisper in his ear, the smell of her perfume flooding his nostrils, her stiff hair caressing the side of his neck. His last thoughts were stolen away from his family to be replaced by pure, animalistic fear.

“Three.”

Something whizzed sharply past his ear. His Handler let out a wheeze as the knife embedded itself in her throat. Crimson poured down the white of her dress. All scenes he had seen before, knew so well, like old photos getting flipped through on a projector, entirely disconnected.

He felt hands on him, pulling him away from her twitching body. There seemed far more than one person's worth, and he wondered if Death was multi-limbed for everyone. Death was also very loud, and used a lot of German swears.

Then a very familiar face enveloped his vision. Two. No, Diego.

He opened his mouth to inform Diego that he was rather disappointed to see him and not Vanya. This was, of course, a lie, but he did that an awful lot of that to his family in life, so why not in death? Instead, his voice shriveled up as the stray tears suddenly increased to a violent deluge.

Diego seemed struck silent, a rare but pleasant treat Five was happy to accept, outside of the fact he would never hear his brother's voice again. Arms were suddenly wrapped around him, strong and warm and perhaps a little too tight for comfort. If this was either a before-death hallucination or heaven, his preference for physical contact was not being taken into account. Or maybe it was, as this was the nicest he had felt in years. For reasons unknown to him, this made him cry harder.

From his vantage point over Diego’s shoulder, he had a good view of her body. She was dead. The three words were wildly underwhelming for a concept he could barely wrap his head around. Instead, he went over his possibilities again. He struck out heaven, as he neither believed in the concept nor was he qualified for it if he was wrong. As far as hallucinations went of his siblings, this was one of the better ones.

Of course, something had to ruin it, and that was a voice cutting through his organization of his thoughts.

“Get him away from the body, Diego, he doesn’t need to see that.” A tone vaguely between demanding and gentle. Allison, he recognized.

“He’s seen bodies before.” Diego’s voice was thick and hoarse, which led Five to the realization he must be crying too. “Damn it, she was going to kill him.”

He wanted to correct him that that has happened before as well, quite often, and went to squirm out of his grip, but Diego was already pulling away. Not entirely, his hands still gripping him tightly on his shoulders, as if he were the one afraid Five will disappear.

“Why did you do that? Why are you even here? You could have died, Five.”

Somehow, it was at that he realized, or remembered, hallucinations could not touch him. “You’re real,” he breathed, unbelieving.

“No shit,” Klaus said wetly from behind him. A soft ‘ouch, rude’ a moment later spoke of Ben’s presence. Ben, who was dead, unlike the rest of his siblings, who were here and alive.

“She said you were dead,” he croaked out. “She said—“

“She was lying,” Allison finished, pulling his head into her chest as he began to sob anew. She was warmer than Diego, softer, but just as alive.

He was not sure how long he spent there, held by Diego and Allison (and Klaus, surprisingly quiet, and even Luther, when he worked up the courage). He knew he had a million things to concern himself with— They were in enemy territory, he was wasting water, and he would surely be unable to look his siblings in the eyes later, to name a few. But instead, his mind was flooded and his limbs were weighed down with the knowledge they were alright. His family was alright.

And when his eyelids began to grow heavy, he knew that the arms surrounding would keep him safe. So he let them drift shut, and surrendered to a black he knew was not eternal.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed, please comment if you did! I think I might make me a sequel to this (because Five is still gonna be Very Much Not Okay when he wakes up but is definitely going to pretend he's fine) so lemme know if you're interested in that!


End file.
